B Ramalinga Raju, prime accused in the multi-crore Satyam case, is slated to stay as an in-house patient of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) for another 22 weeks. Raju is undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C in the hospital.

Dr Ajit Kumar, who is treating Raju, told the 21st additional chief metropolitan magistrate court on Thursday that 26 weeks of the 48 needed for treating his ailment is over, and another 22 weeks are remaining.

The medical report further says that Raju’s treatment so far has included Peginterferon injections and Ribavirin tablets and that he is showing good signs of improvement. It also spoke about a report they obtained from Mumbai’s Ranbaxy lab which confirmed him as a responder to the ongoing treatment.

The Nims report also warned about serious consequences if he is disturbed now in any form as he remains at a high risk of internal bleeding in brain, abdomen and lungs. Magistrate B V L N Chakravarthy upon being told by Raju’s counsel that the sessions court, where one of the accused has challenged the trial court’s adoption of ‘examination ahead of hearing’ method, has stayed the trial proceedings till Friday, and posted the matter to August 3.

The metropolitan sessions judge, M Vijayalakshmi, would decide on Friday the validity of the challenge to the examination method.